Vintage music buffs and eBay trawlers have long been bedazzled by bizarre, cartoonish record sleeves tagged with the signature "Flora." In the 1940s and '50s, James (Jim) Flora designed dozens of diabolic cover illustrations, many for Columbia and RCA Victor jazz artists. His world pulsed with angular hepcats bearing funnel-tapered noses and shark-fin chins, who fingered cockeyed pianos and honked lollipop-hued horns.

Jim Flora jazzed up the world of commercial art in countless ways: magazine covers and interior illustrations; newspaper graphics; sales lit; ads; 17 children's books; and a catalog of unclassifiable artifacts. Jim Flora had fun making a living, and that sense of fun sizzles in his creations.